Need some help with research, please!

[wackyj2000]

So my clinical coordinator on the floor said my pt had small bowel obstruction as their primary diagnosis, but then i looked through the my pts chart it said "ventral hernia small bowel obstruction". To explain the diagnosis i had to browse through LIPINCOTT's manuel or my medsurg book but...they are both under intestinal obstruction.... is that the same thing or am i going to have to combine definitions?

little confused........

please help

[Daytonite, BSN, RN]

The patient has a portion of the small bowel that has managed to protrude through a ventral herniation which is causing the small bowel to be obstructed, probably because the small bowel is kinked off. In other words, the ventral hernia is the cause of the obstruction. If the ventral hernia wasn't present, the small bowel would be in it's correct anatomical position and this bowel obstruction never would have happened. Your patient is going to be going to the OR.